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pandabear
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04 Jun 2010, 3:29 pm

Okay, we've had a good time mocking the conservatives.

How about if we make fun of the liberals, now?

Okay, I'll start.

So, How About Roosevelts Second Bill of Rights?

Quote:
It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”[2] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Ah, that old liberal Franklin Roosevelt was always good for a laugh, wasn't he?



iamnotaparakeet
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04 Jun 2010, 4:00 pm

Disgracing America

By Mona Charen (Archive) · Friday, June 4, 2010


Quote:
President Barack Obama, who got his start in politics in the living room of domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and spent his first year in office apologizing for American history, has now decisively tipped U.S. foreign policy toward America's enemies. Events of the past week have left no doubt.

There is a pattern. President "Let No Crisis Be Wasted" Obama twists events to justify his radical agenda. A financial crisis becomes the excuse for a massive health care entitlement. An oil spill is exploited to push an unpopular energy tax. And a jihadist publicity stunt -- the Gaza flotilla -- becomes the occasion to throw Israel to the wolves.

One mentions Ayers and Dohrn not to dwell on the past but because -- hello! -- the pair has been involved with the Free Gaza movement, one of the organizers of the so-called "Freedom Flotilla." Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has announced that he, too, would like to participate in the next running of the blockade -- and why not? Obama has blessed the project with success.

By 1) declaring through Secretary of State Clinton that the blockade of Gaza is "unsustainable and unacceptable"; 2) joining the United Nations Security Council in "condemn(ing) those acts which resulted in the loss of at least 10 civilians and many wounded"; and 3) having a White House official tell the Washington Post that there is now a "general sense in the administration that it's time to change our Gaza policy," the Obama administration has handed the terrorists a victory.

To review: In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, forcibly uprooting 8,500 Jewish settlers and evacuating all soldiers. The Palestinians were left free to form their own government and run their own affairs. Much of value was left behind. MSNBC reported at the time that "American Jewish donors ... bought more than 3,000 greenhouses from Israeli settlers in Gaza for $14 million last month and transferred them to the Palestinian Authority. Former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who brokered the deal, put up $500,000 of his own cash."

But the day after Israeli troops departed, the greenhouses were looted. MSNBC reported: "Palestinian police stood by helplessly Tuesday as looters carted off materials from greenhouses in several settlements, and commanders complained they did not have enough manpower to protect the prized assets. In some instances, there was no security and in others, police even joined the looters, witnesses said."

In 2007, Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamist terror group, staged a coup and gained control of Gaza. Too busy to tend greenhouses, they occupied themselves by raining 10,000 missiles on Israeli cities and sending kidnappers and suicide bombers across the border.

Israel imposed a blockade to prevent Hamas from receiving weapons or the materials from which to make weapons. Egypt, too, blockades Gaza. Food, medicine, and other humanitarian relief flow to the inhabitants on a daily basis through Israel. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. As the Washington Post reports, "Gazans readily admit that they are not going hungry ... (but they) used to be earning $100 per day, smoking Marlboros and going to Egypt every two months on vacation."

Hamas' charter calls for Israel's destruction, and for the murder of all Jews "no matter how long that should take." By focusing on the blockade -- as the jihadis and blockade runners would wish -- instead of on Israel's justified self-defense, the administration has undermined our own arguments for defeating terrorists.

The administration let it be known that it had "warned" Israel to "use restraint" against the Gaza convoy. There was no corresponding warning to Turkey about supporting and supplying the illegal flotilla. Come to think of it, where was the U.S. warning to Turkey or Brazil for linking arms with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month and easing Iran's path to a nuclear bomb?

The depths of Obama's radicalism were evident a year ago, when he sided with Chavez and the Castro brothers against the people of Honduras as Chavez wannabe Manuel Zelaya attempted to seize power in violation of the constitution. For an American leader to side openly with leftist thugs was shocking.

And when Obama lost his voice as thousands of Iranians braved clubs and bullets to demand their freedom, his values were suspect.

But this week is a new low. Under Obama's leadership, the United States has capitulated to terror tactics and the despicable temptation to blame Israel. America has always been the one country in the world that reliably countered the bullying and grotesque double standards much of the world applies to Israel. Obama has now joined the jackals. What a disgrace.


http://patriotpost.us/opinion/mona-char ... g-america/



iamnotaparakeet
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04 Jun 2010, 4:01 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOGG_osOoVg[/youtube]



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04 Jun 2010, 4:05 pm

Re-Run

By Cal Thomas (Archive) · Wednesday, June 2, 2010


Quote:
Does it strike anyone else as beyond coincidence that within hours of Israel's commando raid on a flotilla of ships bound for Gaza -- ships supposedly containing "humanitarian supplies," and left-wing "peace activists" -- that demonstrations broke out in Europe and outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington? And how about the U.N. Security Council, which often acts in slow motion, except when it has the opportunity to criticize Israel. It sprang into action on Memorial Day to listen to haters of the Jewish state denounce Israel as if it already knew who was to blame for the nine civilian deaths and the many wounded. The Council has now called for an "impartial" and "transparent" investigation.

Haven't we seen this equivalent of a TV summer re-run before? According to the familiar script, anything that the Palestinian side, Hamas, Iran and numerous other haters of Jews and Christians do is justified because of the Israeli "occupation" of "Palestinian land." When Israeli soldiers defend themselves from violent attacks by these "peace activists," they are always acting "disproportionately" and thus deserving of denunciation, censure and ostracism from the "world community." One wishes the haters of Israel would direct some of that zeal to the real enemies of freedom and religious pluralism: radical Islam.

The 1994 Gaza-Jericho agreement served as the basis for Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. In it, Israel was given authority to act precisely as it did on Monday. The relevant sentence states: "As part of Israel's responsibilities for safety and security within the three Maritime Activity Zones, Israel Navy vessels may sail throughout these zones, as necessary and without limitations, and may take any measures necessary against vessels suspected of being used for terrorist activities, or for smuggling arms, ammunition, drugs, goods, or for any other illegal activity..."

If one is known by the company one keeps, then it is useful to consider who was behind this flotilla to Gaza. According to Israeli intelligence, the chief sponsor of the mission was an organization known as IHH, a Turkish humanitarian relief fund with a radical Islamic, anti-Western orientation. Like many other groups, including some that have infiltrated Western countries, IHH does just enough legitimate charitable work to serve as a front for its true agenda. In this it resembles the American Mafia.

Israeli intelligence says IHH initiated a number of "humanitarian aid" convoys to anti-U.S. Islamic terrorists in Iraq's Fallujah Triangle. It cites information from the Danish Institute for International Studies that asserts IHH is connected to al-Qaida and global Islamic terrorism. IHH offices in Istanbul were raided by Turkish security services and IHH activists were arrested. Explosives, weapons, manuals and documents pertaining to Afghanistan were found.

According to a French intelligence report, Bulent Yildirim, the president of IHH, recruited "Jihad warriors" and transferred money, firearms and explosives to al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorists in various countries.

There's plenty more tying IHH to the Gaza flotilla and to its efforts in support of radicals and terrorist organizations, but you get the picture.

Israel's minister of defense, Ehud Barak, told a news conference a few hours after the flotilla incident, "On one of the six ships, the protestors initiated violence. We express remorse for the injured activists, however, the full responsibility rests on the organizers of the flotilla and those participants who acted violently."

President Obama said it is important to learn "all the facts and circumstances" behind the incident before reaching conclusions. The facts and circumstances are already known. It is a fact that those trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza hate and wish to destroy Israel. And any circumstance will be created or used to achieve that objective.

Again, we've seen this scenario before and surely will see it again, and again, and again, unless and until the world wakes up to the clash of civilizations too many want to ignore, hoping it will go away. It won't until one civilization crushes the other.


http://patriotpost.us/opinion/cal-thoma ... 02/re-run/



iamnotaparakeet
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04 Jun 2010, 4:07 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLuMWiQ6r2o[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhLq9NPLv0M[/youtube]



iamnotaparakeet
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04 Jun 2010, 4:13 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG7T3ckwZUs[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pWe9MxLZKM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZjX-rNNTKQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI_7a0yck_E[/youtube]



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04 Jun 2010, 4:20 pm

Lone Jewish High School Student Faces Down Arab Mob in LA

by Hillel Fendel


Quote:
A loud and angry mob of pro-Arab demonstrators outside the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles on Tuesday became even more enraged when one, lone Jewish high school student with a yarmulke and a large Israeli flag marched fearlessly alongside them.

The young man, whose name was later learned to be Daniel Pereg, seemed to be unmoved by the angry curses hurled at him by the American-Arab crowd. Though protected by a line of policemen, it appeared he could be attacked at any moment.

Reporters asked him afterwards about his unusual presence, and he explained, “I came out because I want to defend Israel… They [the soldiers attempting to divert the flotilla ships - ed.] were attacked, and they had the right to defend [themselves]. These people [on the boats] were not humanitarians; their ship was armed with knives, batons, and all kinds of things to attack the Israelis with. There is a naval blockade on Gaza, and they [the soldiers] were just doing their job of enforcing it… Hamas is a terrorist organization trying to kill Israelis.”

Asked if he is affiliated with any group, he said, “Just Judaism and Israel, that’s it.” (text continues below video)


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABjE_7uwA0I[/youtube]

Asked how he knows that the ship was filled with arms, Daniel said, “I know from the news; I’m an informed person.”

This contrasted with the Arab-Americans who appear at the end of the video. One girl said that a Palestinian state alongside Israel would not satisfy her, as “there should not be an Israeli state! The Israeli state does not even exist!”

Another Arab-speaking American explained, “The only reason Israel is doing this is because they got kicked out from, uh, the German whatever, whatever happened to them. So they’re trying to take out their anger on someone else.” Asked about the Bible and the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel since the times of King Solomon, he lowered his voice and said, “I don’t know about that.”


http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137844



Last edited by iamnotaparakeet on 04 Jun 2010, 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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04 Jun 2010, 4:25 pm

How Hamas fooled the West

by Andrew Bolt


Quote:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LulDJh4fWI[/youtube]

NOTHING more to be said. Israeli soldiers kill at least nine peace activists trying to ship aid to a starving people.

Or as the front page of The Age screamed: “Israel kills boat protesters.”

End of story. There are immediate riots and protests against this appalling brutality in London, Paris, New York, Istanbul, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and throughout the Middle East.

The United Nations whacks Israel and calls for an emergency meeting of the Security Council. And from Moscow to Washington, Israel stands utterly friendless. Dangerously alone.

What a coup for those pledged to the destruction of that tiny Jewish country. How discredited and invitingly defenceless Israel now seems. Someone couldn’t have scripted this any better.

Well, almost no better, because even the journalists most sympathetic to the activists on the six ships intercepted on Monday by Israel couldn’t help but refer, albeit grudgingly, to a couple of untidy details too obvious to ignore.

ABC radio host Jon Faine, for instance, described these poor victims of Zionist aggression as “humanitarian activists with a few knives”.

Er, with knives? Humanitarians?

And a strident report in The Age, Australia’s most Left-wing metropolitan daily, conceded that video of the Israeli soldiers being lowered on to the ships from helicopters did show that some of the “hundreds of politicians and protesters” on board did offer “signs of resistance”.

Here are some of those “signs of the resistance” that this Age reporter tactfully failed to detail.

You see the Israeli commandos, at first brandishing just paint-ball guns, being grabbed by mobs as they landed, dragged to the ground, and beaten brutally with metal pipes and clubs.

On another clip, apparently shot by protesters, you see a soldier stabbed in the back, and then in the front.

Another soldier is shown being beaten and thrown over the side.

Photographs show two Israeli soldiers, one of them shot, being carried off with serious wounds.

This isn’t what you’d normally expect from “peace protesters” or “humanitarian activists”, even those armed merely “with a few knives”.

So these clues suggest the Western media - and many foolish politicians - have just fallen for a brilliant propaganda coup by the kind of Islamists who threaten us, too.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also fell for it, saying he was “deeply concerned” by the deaths and condemning “any use of violence under the sorts of circumstances we have seen”.

His Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, likewise attacked Israel for a “terrible and shocking event” and demanded it hold an inquiry.

Not once did Rudd or Smith suggest an inquiry into who organised this trap in which Israel had fallen - or into those who now stand most to gain.

The despairing Israeli ambassador, Yuval Rotem, could only congratulate the organisers: “They couldn’t have had a better outcome.”

So who are we talking about? Here’s another vital clue.

The Israeli soldiers took over six ships of an “aid” flotilla trying to pierce the blockade that both Israel and Egypt have imposed on Gaza, a territory controlled by the Islamist Hamas.

Only on one of those six ships did the Israelis meet a resistance that clearly - and fatally - caught them by surprise.

This was not on one of the ships manned by the Western politicians, aid workers and other useful idiots brought along for camouflage.

It broke out instead on the Mavi Marmara, a ship bought and supplied by a Turkish “humanitarian relief fund” known as IHH.

IHH may boast about its good works, but intelligence agencies warn that it is in fact tied to Islamist terrorists.

The CIA as long ago as 1996 noted it was linked to “Iran operatives” and gave “support for extremist/terrorist activity”, including in Bosnia.

In 2001, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the prominent French counter-terrorism magistrate, said at the trial of the “millennium bomber” that IHH had played “an important role” in the plot to blow up Los Angeles airport.

He said the charity was “a type of cover up” to infiltrate mujahideen into combat, get forged documents and smuggle weapons.

In 2006, the Danish Institute for International Studies reported that Turkish security forces had raided the IHH’s Istanbul bureau and found firearms, explosives and bomb-making instructions, as well as records of calls to an al-Qaida guest house in Milan.

The Turkish investigators concluded this “charity” was sending jihadists to Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan, where Australian soldiers serve.

IHH has also been a long-time supporter of Hamas, listed in many countries as a terrorist group.

But this time it planned something more effective than an explosion. It decided to destroy Israel’s moral standing among its more fickle friends.

Its Mavi Marmara would now head a flotilla to break through the Israeli blockade of Gaza - or, rather, to provoke Israel into stopping it by force.

IHH head Bulent Yildirim gloated that this would be seen as “a declaration of war” against all the countries that supplied the flotilla’s passengers, which is why so many foreigners, and particularly sympathetic journalists such as the Sydney Morning Herald’s Paul McGeough, were on board, having been recruited from Australia, Britain, the US and many other countries that IHH and its allies hoped could be turned into enemies of Israel.

It was obvious Israel would stop the convoy. It had to: to relax the blockade once would be to open a corridor to yet more ships, giving Gaza yet another conduit for the smuggling of jihadists and militarily useful supplies.

Oh, and ignore soothing claims now that Hamas, which runs Gaza, should actually be negotiated with, rather than blockaded. Hamas fires rockets at Israeli civilians, and has a charter that calls for the destruction of Israel, declaring “there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad”.

Indeed, jihad was also the spirit on the Mavi Marmara as it sailed for Gaza.

Those on board refused offers by Israel that they dock at an Israeli port so their aid could be checked and forwarded to Gaza. They rejected warnings to turn back. They prepared instead for a deadly confrontation.

Arab television showed one woman on board exulting: “We await one of two good things - to achieve martyrdom or reach the shore of Gaza.”

Added another passenger, Yemeni professor Abd al-Fatah Nu’man: “These are people who wish to be martyred for the sake of Allah. As much as they want to reach Gaza, the other option is more desirable to them.”

They got just what they wanted, then, as did Hamas and its chief backer, Iran.

Iran, needing attention distracted from its nuclear weapons program, pumped out instant YouTube footage of this Israeli “atrocity”.

Meanwhile Hamas spokesman Samil Abu Zuhri called for a global “intifada”: “We call on all Arabs and Muslims to rise up in front of Zionist embassies across the whole world.”

And in capital cities around Australia, we yesterday saw the new front open as angry demonstrators took the streets.

So what, you may scoff. A few of the usual hotheads.

But see this time how many of our politicians, journalists and “thinkers” are on the wrong side of this front.

See how willingly they’ve surrendered to an Islamist plot more effective than any Bali bomb.


http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andr ... _the_west/



Last edited by iamnotaparakeet on 04 Jun 2010, 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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04 Jun 2010, 4:29 pm

Terrorism, the Media, and Israel

by Bill Muehlenberg


Quote:
Here we go again: more “peace activists” – complete with knives, iron rods, and clubs. It all takes me back to my radical student days, when I too was a “peace activist”. Indeed, those of us in the New Left were experts at using Orwellian doublespeak to achieve our aims: the overthrow of the West.

We became quite adept at highjacking legitimate causes and using them to further our revolution. And we became especially good at creating “incidents”. We knew how to engage in outrageous activities which were guaranteed to draw a response from the authorities, leading to a very public confrontation.

And we were of course always sure to have this violent “overreaction” by our opponents filmed by an eager media, to be broadcast in full colour on the six o’clock news. Amazing how we always came out looking like an innocent victim, and the police or other authorities ended up looking like the aggressor.

We became experts in manipulating the media to end up supporting our causes. We staged things so that our cause always looked right, and noble, and humanitarian, while our opponents always looked like inhumane aggressors, out to get us. We won one skirmish after another this way

That is why the events over the past day or so concerning Israel’s response to the Turkish flotilla had such a familiar ring to it. The truth is, the radical left, the Islamist terrorists, and the enemies of Israel, have all managed to perfect this technique of staging an international “incident”.

They have become quite adept at provoking the beleaguered nation of Israel, generating a reaction from it, all with TV cameras rolling. The most recent episode was simply a case study of this strategy. And it worked wonderfully. All around the world the usual outrage has been generated, complete with a compliant mainstream media.

We of course expect the secular left, the Islamists, and the MSM to hate Israel. Thus this story comes as no surprise whatsoever, especially to those of us who were once part of the revolutionary left, and can recognise these tactics a mile away.

Fortunately a few commentators have been able to see through this ruse. Greg Sheridan for example writes about how the “Grotesque theatre succeeded brilliantly”. He explains, “It’s too early to call it definitively, but the evidence is disturbing. In the melee of the Gaza ships, real violence occurred on only one ship, the Marmara. It was a Turkish vessel and its activists came from the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH).

“The IHH is a pro-Hamas Islamist terror group implicated in numerous al-Qa’ida operations. They took clubs, steel bars, knives and perhaps guns on board. But their object was not to kill Israeli soldiers – though they would have been happy for that to happen. The aim was a kind of grotesque theatre, which is what all terrorism is really about, in this case to carry out enough violence to ensure a violent Israeli reaction. It succeeded brilliantly.

“For weeks before the flotilla set off, the Israelis were constantly nagging the Turkish ambassador in Tel Aviv to help them manage the situation. We can do nothing, the Turkish government said, adding the matter was being carried out by non-government organisations.

“The flotilla never had any interest in getting aid to Gaza. The Israelis offered to route the aid through the Israeli port of Ashdod. Or the flotilla could have landed in Egypt and sent the aid in by road. No, the flotilla existed only to make political theatre and the IHH activists were determined to make deadly theatre, for the more deadly the performance is, the bigger the theatre becomes.”

Andrew Bolt puts it this way: “What a coup for those pledged to the destruction of that tiny Jewish country. How discredited and invitingly defenceless Israel now seems. Someone couldn’t have scripted this any better. Well, almost no better, because even the journalists most sympathetic to the activists on the six ships intercepted on Monday by Israel couldn’t help but refer, albeit grudgingly, to a couple of untidy details too obvious to ignore.

ABC radio host Jon Faine, for instance, described these poor victims of Zionist aggression as ‘humanitarian activists with a few knives’. Er, with knives? Humanitarians? And a strident report in The Age, Australia’s most Left-wing metropolitan daily, conceded that video of the Israeli soldiers being lowered on to the ships from helicopters did show that some of the ‘hundreds of politicians and protesters’ on board did offer ‘signs of resistance’.

Here are some of those ‘signs of the resistance’ that this Age reporter tactfully failed to detail. You see the Israeli commandos, at first brandishing just paint-ball guns, being grabbed by mobs as they landed, dragged to the ground, and beaten brutally with metal pipes and clubs.

“On another clip, apparently shot by protesters, you see a soldier stabbed in the back, and then in the front. Another soldier is shown being beaten and thrown over the side. Photographs show two Israeli soldiers, one of them shot, being carried off with serious wounds. This isn’t what you’d normally expect from ‘peace protesters’ or ‘humanitarian activists’, even those armed merely ‘with a few knives’.”

Melanie Phillips provides some background to this story: “Gaza’s markets are full of produce, thousands of tons of supplies are travelling into Gaza every week through the Israeli-controlled border crossings, and there is no starvation or humanitarian crisis. It was always obvious that the flotilla was not the humanitarian exercise it was said to be.”

She continues, “And now we can see that the real purpose of this invasion – backed by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), a radical Islamic organization outlawed by Israel in 2008 for allegedly serving as a major component in Hamas’s global fund-raising machine – was to incite a violent uprising in the Middle East and across the Islamic world.

Contrary to a biased MSM, this was not an attack on the Turkish ship: “It is also becoming clearer as the day wears on that, far from storming the boats in order to attack those on board, the Israelis were hopelessly ill-prepared for the violence they encountered. Israel’s Channel 10 and IDF radio have reported that the Israeli naval commandos were equipped with paint ball rifles to ensure minimum casualties among the flotilla terrorists, with their hand guns to be used only as a last resort.

“The terrorists tried connecting the steel cables from the overhead helicopters to the boat’s antenna, in order to cause the helicopters to crash. Only when the terrorists beat the soldiers with iron rods, stabbed them with knives and tried to lynch them did the soldiers respond. The Israeli commandoes were pushed down stairs, thrown overboard, and shot at.”

She concludes, “It is becoming ever more clear that Islamist terror attacks like this are fiendishly staged theatrical events in which the western media – and beyond them, western governments – play an absolutely essential role in the drama. If those media and governments refused to swallow the lies and instead called operations like this and the players behind it for what they actually are, such terrorist operations would not happen.

“The Islamist strategy of war against Israel is carefully calibrated to deploy the most effective weapon in its armoury in the cause of jihadi violence – the western media. Right on cue, western governments accordingly deliver their own script in condemning the victims of terror for defending themselves. And so, courtesy of the west’s fifth columnists, yet another nail is driven into the west’s own coffin. Let’s see whether this time the western elites show any signs of waking from their lethal trance.”

Quite right. This is not the first such example of guerrilla theatre, and it will not be the last. It comes straight out of the radical’s playbook. I and plenty of others have used these tactics to great effect. Now the Islamists and enemies of Israel and the West are also using them, with great – and deadly – results.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wo ... 5874215412

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion-old ... 5874185912

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephill ... bush.thtml


http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/06/ ... nd-israel/



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04 Jun 2010, 4:42 pm

History Wars

by Bill Muehlenberg


Quote:
George Orwell once said, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Quite so. It has always been a hallmark of the totalist state to control education and to rewrite history. Those who can alter the past will be able to manipulate the future.

Sadly democratic states are not immune from allowing education in general and history in particular to be dominated by those pushing agendas. For decades now mass education in the West has largely been in the hands of the secular left, and they have been quite happy to push their own politically correct agendas in all areas, including history.

For years now students in all levels of education have been subject to a fairly one-eyed view of things, including history. With so much education today being little more than indoctrination, no wonder that so many parents have voted with their feet and put their kids in private schools, or resorted to homeschooling.

Recent announcements about a new draft national history curriculum for Australian schools may result in even more parents making the move out of the public education system. A number of historians have warned that this curriculum appears to be yet more leftist propaganda masquerading as education.

Here is how one press account introduces the story: “Historians say the new national modern history curriculum for schools reads like a Marxist manifesto that ignores popular aspects of our past and neglects Australia’s role in world politics and war. The course, designed for years 11 and 12, is heavily focused on revolutionary struggles, colonial oppression and women’s struggle for equality.

“It neglects Australia’s British roots and institutions and its military history, with no mention of Gallipoli, Tobruk or Kokoda, the experts say. The draft lists World War I as a potential case study in ‘investigating modern history’. It lists ‘controversies surrounding … memorial sites and commemorative events’ as an area of study but does not mention Gallipoli or the battle of Fromelle.

“In a topic headed ‘Australia 1880-1945’, the draft lists ‘the formation of organised labour’, ‘White Australia’ and ‘wartime government controls, including conscription, control of the labour force, rationing, censorship and propaganda’. But it does not mention the settlement of Australia or the deeds of the first AIF in World War I.”

Various historians have weighed into the debate. Geoffrey Blainey for example has said that the draft curriculum seems to offer a “left-wing view of Australian history”. Historian Andrew Garvie said the course lacked a balanced view of history: “This appears to be a very trendy, right-on curriculum. It looks heavily influenced by a Marxist view of history – there’s lots about revolution and struggles against oppression.”

And education expert “Dr Kevin Donnelly said the new curriculum had put indigenous and Asian content and perspectives ahead of Australia’s Anglo-Celtic tradition, the debt we owe to Western civilisation and the importance of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Dr Donnelly said the curriculum contained 118 references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, culture and history – with grade 5s studying White Australia and grade 9s Aboriginal massacres and displacement. There is just one reference to Parliament and none to Westminster or the Magna Carta.”

Donnelly said Education Minister Julia Gillard and other defenders of the curriculum are amiss to dismiss concerns about bias. “They’re wrong. Anyone reading the two syllabus documents, covering kindergarten to year 10 and years 11 and 12, can be left in no doubt that schools across Australia will soon be forced to teach a new-age and politically correct view of history and Australia’s place in the world.

“History, like every other subject in the national curriculum, has to be taught through the politically correct prism of Aboriginal, Asian and environmental perspectives. Forget the importance of Australia’s Western heritage or the impact of science, technology and industry in overcoming poverty and eradicating disease.”

Consider Australia’s religious makeup, and how the new curriculum seeks to rewrite this important topic: “In the years K-10 curriculum students are told to study the ‘contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to the Australian nation’, the ‘significance of Dreaming and the perspectives and meaning in Dreaming stories’ and to ‘explain the key features of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies’.

“In the 29 pages of the K-10 syllabus, ‘Christendom’ is mentioned once and ‘Christian’ also once, but only in the context of studying other religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Judaism and Islam. Ignored is that Indigenous Australians, according to the 2006 census, account for only 2.6 per cent of the population and that Australia’s language, political and legal systems and culture are Anglo-Celtic in origin and based on the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

“Based on 1999 figures 70 per cent of Australians describe themselves as Anglo-Celtic in origin and according to the 2007 census 64 per cent of Australians are Christians. It’s no accident that sessions of parliament begin with the Lord’s Prayer and that Christian morality underpins much of our way of life.”

Yet all this will be significantly downplayed or ignored altogether if the historical revisionists get their way. And what will be played up is the leftist version of events: “Asking students to study ‘organised labour, including the union movement and the ALP’ while ignoring the origins of the Liberal Party is clear evidence of bias. Likewise, ignoring America’s role in World War II in Europe and the Pacific reflects an anti-American sentiment widespread amongst the left.

“That the history curriculum appears to have been written by cultural warriors of the left most likely explains why, on studying the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, that McCarthyism is mentioned, but not Stalin’s purges or the role of Ronald Reagan in defeating what he termed the evil empire.”

Of course all this is not happening by accident. The Left has always known that to control the institution of education, along with the other centres of power and influence (like the media, the courts, and the churches) is a powerful means by which to win the revolution without firing a shot.

Indeed, we already have plenty of examples of Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s scheme of taking over a culture by means of the “long march through the institutions”. What we see here is simply more of the same. No bullets will be fired, but the overthrow of a culture will be just as assured as if a full-frontal violent revolution took place.

This is what is known as the culture wars, and the history wars are but one part of this. The secular left seems to never rest in its attempt to capture the West for its agenda. Those concerned about this struggle over the soul of the West need to be just as diligent.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/nation ... 5872984659

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/nation ... 5870067583

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2913756.htm


http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/05/31/history-wars/



Master_Pedant
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04 Jun 2010, 5:06 pm

Liberals are unaccepting of dissent.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h6VETOkXpU[/youtube]



zer0netgain
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04 Jun 2010, 8:30 pm

pandabear wrote:
Ah, that old liberal Franklin Roosevelt was always good for a laugh, wasn't he?


And if you know your history and politics, you can easily see how each of those noble objectives were perverted to massively increase government control over individual lives and ultimately destroy the very things they were supposed to be promoting.



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04 Jun 2010, 10:20 pm

First they were after the 2nd amendment, now that it's not going their way in most parts of the country they are out to destroy the 1st amendment- trying to silence their opposition by labeling their views "hate speech".


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04 Jun 2010, 10:25 pm

John_Browning wrote:
First they were after the 2nd amendment, now that it's not going their way in most parts of the country they are out to destroy the 1st amendment- trying to silence their opposition by labeling their views "hate speech".


The problem for them is if "hate speech" were to have a general enough definition amended to it so as to include their own inflammatory polemics. They would be all cheering at first as their conservative opposition gets silenced by force, but then they'd stop laughing at our plight when they found out they were next.



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05 Jun 2010, 12:13 pm

Master_Pedant wrote:
Liberals are unaccepting of dissent.

So NPR let Noam Chomsky speak for a few minutes, prerecorded? I doubt Fox News would ever put him on air unless it's to twist soundbites out of context.



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07 Jun 2010, 2:19 pm

zer0netgain wrote:
pandabear wrote:
Ah, that old liberal Franklin Roosevelt was always good for a laugh, wasn't he?


And if you know your history and politics, you can easily see how each of those noble objectives were perverted to massively increase government control over individual lives and ultimately destroy the very things they were supposed to be promoting.


"Noble" objectives? What utter nonsense! :lmao: